


The Gourmands' Plans

by pseudofaux



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Food, Gen, The Masquerade, Volta: adorable but a dread magnet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:46:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25254055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pseudofaux/pseuds/pseudofaux
Summary: “But aren’t youhungry?” the little woman squeaks. Or so Mazelinka must suspect, because she hears more of the other woman’s tone than her words. The woman has spoken around comically large bites of a bun covered with cheese– manchego viejo if Mazelinka’s nose is right, and she is fairly certain it is. She has always had a nose for cheese. And trouble. This tiny woman is a mountain of it.[Written for the Vesuvian Nights zine in July 2019]
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8





	The Gourmands' Plans

**Author's Note:**

> Volta was my favorite courtier at first sight. Mazelinka made me lol the most in the first three routes. When I was spitballing ideas for zine pieces, this one popped up and I could not whackamole it until I wrote it! Of course I'd change some things a year later, but I really like it, even now. I hope you'll enjoy it as well.

The hall where the Masquerade’s biggest banquet is laid out is long, and every surface in it is lined with treasure: everywhere there is the glint of rich foods, of gilt, of flowers real and made. Were Mazelinka not in possession of such impeccable manners, she might be tempted to remove a few pieces… and honestly, what she expects is the intended grandeur of the palace has been taken well past the point of gaudy with decorations. There’s little that pulls at a pirate’s heart quite like stupidly displayed treasure.

She is not here as a pirate, she is here for a party, and her goal is the acquisition of _experience_ rather than that of goods. She also hopes she will see Pasha. She is certain she will see Ilya, or hear him. The boy has an incredible knack for making himself known.

For now, her senses are focused on the marvel before her. Credit given where it is due: the work of the kitchens have made this room look and smell heavenly. There are flowers and incense and who knows what other land-based indulgences perfuming the palace tonight, but in the banqueting rooms the scents of glorious foods and rare spices waft through the air so thickly Mazelinka breathes through her mouth just to put the tastes on her tongue.

It’s a pleasure and she knows it. People who get to grow old learn: you only have to eat. You don’t have to eat the best food, not even good food, to live. That’s why a feast is a special occasion. To try as many things from these over-laden tables as possible, Mazelinka intends to take tiny portions. Her memory is reliable, but she has even brought along a little book for notes in case there is something extraordinary.

She is putting together her first plate when she realizes there is a woman across the buffet table, also making her way down the line. And this woman is audibly distressed at the state of Mazelinka’s plate.

“But aren’t you _hungry?_ ” the little woman squeaks. Or so Mazelinka must suspect, because she hears more of the other woman’s tone than her words. The woman has spoken around comically large bites of a bun covered with cheese– manchego viejo if Mazelinka’s nose is right, and she is fairly certain it is. She has always had a nose for cheese. And trouble. This tiny woman is a mountain of it.

Mazelinka, who wants to eat good food far more than she wants to talk about eating good food, says, “I had a big lunch.” The other woman looks at her like she is made of manchego viejo, and heaves a sigh that would be comical if it were not so mournful.

“I wish my lunch had been bigger,” the other woman says, and her lips and cheeks tremble over the last word. It is more than a pout. Mazelinka recognizes the marks of someone who is living in a lean time, but the notion is difficult to square against the little woman’s dress and fine (crumb-covered) ruff, and her mask with its painted swirls and feathers. This woman can afford to eat well, so why is she so hungry?

“I have been smelling and smelling but never allowed to sit and EAT, and here are crunchy treats and soft treats, and I am so hungry,” wails the little woman. “a Procurator of the city, but no one procures food for Volta.”

Volta sniffles as she picks up roasted asparagus stalks with her fingers. She is pushing them into her mouth the way children eat sticks of bread, bites so rapid it sounds like her teeth are chattering.

The women move down their respective sides of the long, long table of foods, and in the time it takes Mazelinka to serve tasting portions onto her plate, Volta consumes everything before her. When they reach the end of the table, Volta looks ravenously at a piece of puff pastry Mazelinka is raising to her plate.

Mazelinka’s heart is not made of stone. Moreover, she has always tried to to live another day. “Eye on this?” she asks, and she offers the little cup– a paste of ground olives laid over salmon, topped with fried saffron– to Volta, who scrabbles to accepted it with a grateful little wail and immediately shoves the canapé into her mouth.

“Oh, thank you,” says Volta with a smile, puff pastry flaking over the empty dishes before her. “That was very kind.” The sound of her gulping down the bite of food is like a rock dropped off a cliff, and Mazelinka feels a slight chill tickling at her spine and her nostrils.

“Do you– would you mind if I had the rest?”

“Plenty here for all of us,” Mazelinka says evenly, though one half of the table has been devastated.

Volta bolts around the table to paw at Mazelinka’s sleeves. It should be easier to recoil, but there is something truly haunted in the little woman’s face, one eye milky and the other overbright.

“Thank you, thank you,” she says, and then she is on the food in the dishes with such ferocity Mazelinka realizes the other woman was holding back as they moved down the table.

Mazelinka cannot help but watch the spectacle for a minute. Volta has scrambled up onto the table now, and the black of her dress is being seasoned by gravies and syrups in the emptying dishes. It’s horrific, and there’s a stench of sadness and magic to the scene that smothers out the good smells of the foods.

There are some terrible things in the world, and they cannot be fixed in a night, not even by fried saffron. Mazelinka dares to lean in and grab another of those little cups of pastry, and then she retreats a few steps away. She murmurs a pleasantry, but Volta is too busy eating, and sobbing quietly through the sounds of crunching and the wet smack of working cheeks.

There are other banquet halls, and Mazelinka decides any of them would be a better place for her.

“Generous lady–!” cries the tiny woman, and when Mazelinka turns around, she sees only a heap of black cloth and then hears a slurping sound from _inside_ a tureen. Volta’s face comes up, her mask and chin and ruff all turned bisque-orange.

“Avoid the north gallery tonight– it has– leopards painted on the doors.” The advice is gasped out in a way that seems nothing so much as helpless, and between words Volta is tilting platters into her mouth to drink the sauce that coats them.

Mazelinka inclines her head, and then gets out of that room. She is grateful for the chance to walk around with her plate and savor the best the palace kitchens have to offer. Her feet take her into another room, where she makes up another plate in complete peace. She finds no food so noteworthy as the little woman, gorging herself and seeming to starve all the while. At the end of the night, she resists the lure of the north gallery and its beautifully spotted doors. Instead, she lives to record all she has tasted and remember all she has seen.


End file.
